Indian Burn
by cruiscin lan
Summary: Sylar thought he'd killed her, but someone has been warning his victims ahead of time. Others try to keep Sylar from taking what he wants. Twisted Sylar/Elle relationship, Angela, HRG, Claire, and Peter. Warning for violence .
1. When Poets Dreamed of Angels

It started as a series of sensations. First there was the cold, a cold so severe it cut through to the skin, making her feel naked, numbing her fingers and toes. It was so cold she could taste the frost in the air between her teeth and on her tongue. She was vaguely aware of the ground beneath her feet. It was soft and gave way beneath her feet, though she felt like she weighed nothing.

Then it became a progression of perceptions. It was impossibly dark, dark as pitch. She realized she was outside, and she looked up as the stars slowly introduced themselves, glittering wanly against the black velvet sky one or two at a time. The moon woke more slowly, its subdued silver glow strengthening without hurry. She looked ahead of her, and on the tenebrous horizon, she could make out figures standing there like sentinels, straight and solid.

She moved towards them instinctively, as though unable to command her own movements. They gradually became clear, morphing from rigid blank soldiers into people she knew. She stopped suddenly. Something was wrong; they were all gazing at her as though with eyes already dead.

Peter. Claire. Bennet. One by one, they fell, deep distinct slices straight across their foreheads, blood seeping down and obscuring their faces.

Suddenly she felt paralyzed by a shock of electricity, running across her spine, jolting her to her very core. Pain seared across her forehead, an unexpected warmth flowing down her own face. Her hands flew up to her cheeks, her fingertips delicately dabbing at the sticky liquid her forehead was exuding - her own blood. In a moment she, too, hit the soft, soft ground.

In the same moment, her eyes shot open, hands flying to her face to discover no blood, no cut. She took a deep breath, slowly inhaling, then exhaling, trying to bring her heart rate down, and trying to clear her mind so that she could think about what just transpired. She placed her hands on the desk in front of her, its solidness assuring her that it was real. She glanced around her, taking in the bookcases, the chairs, the assorted files and trappings of her office. None of it had actually happened. Her son was safe, her granddaughter was safe, Bennet was safe.

It would have been reassuring for most people to realize that it had all been just a dream, but a dream of Angela Petrelli's is never just that.


	2. Run

This is what had happened.

He had almost succeeded in getting what he wanted. One man stood in the way - Noah Bennet - and he'd had him pinned helplessly against the wall. But Bennet's words had a way of cutting themselves into Sylar's brain, planting the seeds of mistrust and suspicion. When, in the next instant, he was standing on a deserted beach with her, he decided she was more of a liability than anything else. He didn't even have to move; she came to him automatically, the way a dog would return to its abusive master. That's all she was to him, really - a bitch, a useless bitch.

He shouldn't have been surprised at what occurred when he tried cutting into her skull; it had happened once before, after all. She overloaded, the electricity overcoming him. He had the ability to heal, but with all his organs fried at once, his body was forced to shut down momentarily.

When he woke up, he decided to simply leave her on the beach, blood still seeping from the wounds on her leg and her head. She looked dead enough already - she'd probably killed herself with her own electrical blast - and he could afford her the small mercy of letting her body be discovered by an early morning jogger, of giving her fifteen minutes of fame when police puzzled over her identity and the public mourned the loss of a pretty, though mysterious, face.

He took her cell phone. In it, he found a list of contacts, some from Pinehearst, but most from the Company. There was a good chance that at least half of these people had powers. With names and numbers handy, Sylar could easily track them down and acquire their abilities one at a time.

Several weeks (and several abilities) later, while relishing the attention the media spent on his new string of serial killings, Sylar became curious as to what had happened to his old flame. He scanned the Costa Verde-area news websites, but found nothing in their archives about a Jane Doe discovered on the beach. He thought perhaps that he'd stolen her thunder, but the police blotters brought him no results, either. He tried to calculate the possibility of her body washing out to sea or being eaten by feral cats. He decided not to dwell on it, and didn't think about her again.

But then he went to kill Penkala Burton, and it went badly. She'd somehow known ahead of time that he was coming, and she proved harder to pin down than Sylar had anticipated. By the time he finally managed to crack open her skull, the brain matter was nearly dead. Then he'd arrived at Byron Bevington's condo, and found the man keeled over on his dinette set, brains rendered useless by a self-inflicted shot to the head. Someone was warning his victims before he could reach them - and it didn't take him long to realize who it must have been.


	3. Diffuse

"I no longer work for the Company, Angela. You're on your own for this."

It was late in the afternoon; the sun shone through the shades, making silhouettes of gold against the ornate bookshelves and tooled leather chairs. The shadows were cut distinctly across the two figures sitting in the office that had once belonged to Bob Bishop, and before that Daniel Linderman, although he had rarely used it. Angela Petrelli was seated behind the wide wooden desk, a petite figure all the more imposing for her compactness. Frightening things come in small packages, after all.

She faced Noah Bennet, who sat on the opposite side of the desk, knees splayed and leaning forward as though in display of bravado. He had been the Company's number one agent until he'd proved his disloyalty by trying to protect his daughter. It was a sentiment that Angela, mother of two, could understand, and she was ready to forgive him that if he would only come back and stop Sylar.

"We have limitless resources, Bennet. We just need the right man for the job."

"I have a family to worry about. I'm not going to put my life on the line anymore to clean up your mistakes."

"Don't you feel the least bit responsible?" Angela sneered. "You were the brains behind the operation that pushed him into this."

"He was already lost long before I got there; I merely watched it happen. You're the one responsible. You let him loose when he should have been contained, you let him believe that you were his mother so you could use him."

"I admit, I was manipulating him, just as you were." Angela glanced down at the newspaper clippings scattered across the surface of the desk, all of them with words in the headlines like murder or found dead or decapitation, although Angela knew that last one to be inaccurate. She looked up again to meet Noah Bennet's flinty stare. "Don't look at me like that. The Company was giving orders, and you followed them blindly. Now we've got this on our hands. Whether one of us is more responsible than the other is impossible to determine. The only thing to do from here is to try to stop him."

"That's no longer part of my job description." Bennet stood up, straightening his tie as he straightened his posture - always professional, even when turning down a lucrative job offer. "I sell paper," he said finally before turning towards the door.

"Think about what he did to your daughter."

Angela's words stopped him cold for a moment, but he didn't hesitate long. He grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and he left the room without looking back.


	4. Dragonfly

He found her again working in a diner. She was just another ordinary waitress there, clad in an ill-fitting button-up dress, ratty tennis shoes, and an apron with large pockets. All that set her apart from the others there were her distinct limp and the way she wore her bangs, partially obscuring the smooth, white scar where he'd begun to cut through her skull not once, but twice. He asked the hostess to seat him in her section, and he was led to a booth in the corner where Elle had to approach him from behind, unable to recognize him until it was too late.

"Hi, welcome to the Greasy Spoon. My name is Tasha," she told him, snapping her gum and pointing lazily at her name tag, "and I'll be your server. The specials today are..."

"Hello there, Tasha," he interrupted. She jumped at the familiar sound of his voice. When she started to shy away, he reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her towards him with a menacing growl. "You know, you remind me of someone I used to know. Can I call you Elle?"

Elle stammered for a moment, frantically searching the diner with her eyes, hoping to catch someone's attention.

Sylar continued. "You're starting to make my job really, really hard, Elle. Not that I mind, per se - it's fun to have a little excitement now and then. But it's starting to get really damn frustrating."

"Can I get you a cup of coffee or a glass of water to start?" she asked, struggling to keep her voice level, pretending that she didn't know who he was, that she wasn't scared shitless at the sight of him. She could blast him with enough voltage to execute an elephant, and be halfway across town by the time he recovered; all she had to do was bide her time long enough to charge up for a such a powerful blast, and that meant stringing him along long enough that he wouldn't kill her.

"Nothing to say? Do you want me to kill you? Come on, Elle, tell me what's on your mind."

Elle was silent, her eyes averted. Her wrist tingled with electricity beneath Sylar's grasp, but he was neither distracted nor affected by the pain. He pulled her closer toward him, close enough to whisper directly into her ear with all the intimacy of a lover.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't pop your top right now."

She couldn't speak; her lips trembled and her forehead started to bead with trepidation, but she couldn't speak to save her life. But Sylar had learned clairsentience from the unfortunate Bridget Bailey, Angela Petrelli's sacrificial lamb, and he could read her history like she was an object.

But he couldn't believe it.

"You're lying," he hissed. "Just like you lied about the Petrellis, just like you lied when we first met. And I can always tell when people are lying." It was another new trick, this one picked up from Sue Landers, the first of Elle's contacts he'd gone after. The truth tingled as it came to him, clear as day, but he was still incredulous. "And it's mine?"

Again, she didn't respond. Again, she didn't need to.

He stood up and stalked out of the booth, still holding Elle's wrist in his grasp, twisting the skin on her forearm and leaving red marks in the shape of his hand. She cried out in pain, trying to resist, but she was caught off-guard, and struggled to keep up with Sylar as he dragged her out of the restaurant and into a plain-looking vehicle in the parking lot. Her wrist started short-circuiting under his hand, but he was unaffected. Elle knew it couldn't be his car as he telekinetically opened the passenger side door and pushed her in. He let himself into the other side, willing the car to start without keys in the ignition, and they were gone before anyone in the diner even thought to call the police.


	5. Daughter

"You aren't going to do anything?" Claire asked, incredulous. "Why did you go all the way to New York then?"

"To make a point. I'm not going back to the Company - period. I don't care anymore if Sylar is on the loose. He's not a danger to you anymore, Claire. He's got your power, and I already got my revenge. I killed him once and he came back. That's not the sort of thing I want to invite back into our home."

"He would kill us all, Dad, if he had even half the chance..."

"Claire, there's no need to raise your voice," Sandra interjected. She was the voice of reason, the fulcrum for which her husband and daughter struggled to maintain a balance. She had taken recent developments in their household with great aplomb, considering her husband had been erasing her memories for nearly two decades, and she had been raising a naturally invincible girl without knowing it. She sighed, trying to think of the kind of bird that laid its eggs in other birds' nests, to fool them into raising some other species' young? Sandra felt a little like the duped bird. Still, one would never know it to look at her calm exterior, or to listen to her command the conversations at dinner every night, conversations which became increasingly convoluted and skirted dangerous topics from one night to the next.

Lyle, the forgotten Bennet, merely stared into the half-eaten meal on his plate. It was his favorite - homemade lasagna - but he was far to engaged with trying to figure out the conversation around the kitchen table to appreciate the three kinds of meat and the four kinds of cheese in his mother's recipe.

At least he was trying to eat. The square of lasagna on his sister's plate was untouched and growing cold. "Fine," she muttered. "But I don't understand how Dad can sleep at night knowing a killer like Sylar is on the loose."

"That's the guy who took Claire's power, right?" Lyle asked without addressing anyone in particular; he was just looking to be let in on the conversation.

"He took my power and he's killed tons of people, too," Claire replied, her voice dripping with cynicism.

"And Dad's not going after him? What about the electric bitch who broke in?"

"I'm pretty sure, given the company she was with, that she's already dead by now," Bennet assured his son.

"I can't believe you aren't going to do anything about this, Dad. He's killing so many more people... Every time I turn on the news there's another one," Claire said.

Bennet sighed, pushing some pasta across his plate. "Claire Bear, there are more important things to worry..."

"What could be more important than saving people? That's what heroes do, isn't it?"

"Protecting my family. Making sure you or Lyle or your mother don't get hurt." Bennet's words were final. He dropped his fork onto his plate and took it into the kitchen before retiring to his office for the rest of the night.

"Cuckoo! That's it!" Sandra muttered to herself. "That's the bird I was trying to think of."

"I'm not hungry anymore," Claire said as she cleared her plate. "I'm going to bed early."

"See you tomorrow, pumpkin," Sandra replied, pulling Mr. Muggles onto her lap.

In the morning, Claire was gone.


	6. Hayling

They drove until he reached the next target he'd selected from Elle's contacts. "Stay here," he instructed her, as though she had any other choice; he sealed the car doors as soon as he stepped out.

When he returned he was covered in blood and carrying several plastic grocery bags, filled with assorted items. He opened the door for her and shoved the bags into her arms, muttering "Take these, they're for you" and grabbing her arm, pulling her across the street and into another car. "Best to keep switching," he said, as though she had asked.

They stopped briefly at a drive-thru fast food place, where Sylar ordered two meals and paid with cash from a victim's wallet. The smell of food made Elle queasy, and her meal sat untouched at her feet while she distracted herself by looking in the plastic bags Sylar had given her. They were full of women's clothes.

They continued driving on until they reached a motel. Sylar didn't bother going through the hassle of checking in; he merely marched to a room and let himself and Elle in. He showered first, locking the motel door and sealing the window before Elle had a chance to act.

He left her alone while she used the bathroom, where she contemplated killing herself. She started to fill up the tub, planning to jolt herself with enough electricity to make herself pass out, hoping she'd drown before he could act. But he quickly grew impatient and knocked open the door; he was suspicious but didn't say anything. Elle decided to shower instead.

Neither of them slept that night, instead shifting uncomfortably on separate beds - Elle's mind racing with thoughts of escape, Sylar's with ways of thwarting it. They left the next morning as a maid watched, confused, as they got into yet another different car and moved on.


	7. All These Days Undone

She couldn't cross the yellow tape to see for herself; the police were pretty vigilant in keeping out the morbidly curious, and she'd already been warned once as she tried ducking underneath when she thought no one was looking. It was time to implement a different strategy.

She was cute enough, and she looked old enough, and if she'd learned anything from being a cheerleader, it was how to flirt her way out of anything. All she needed to do was single out the rookie and hope for the best.

"So, like, there was a murder inside, right?" she asked, cocking her head and twirling her hair around her finger.

"That's what I hear - they don't let guys like me inside," he replied, smiling. "You're kinda cute. What's your name?"

Claire was at a loss for pseudonyms, and told him the first name that came to her. "Elle. I'm Elle. So, like, what happened in there?"

"Well, Elle, they think it's the same guy who was working his way up the California coast not too long ago. They think he might have doubled back and then started making his way through Arizona to here."

"Why do you think it's the same guy?" Claire asked, jutting her bottom lip out ever so slightly.

"See, that's the important part. He's got a very unusual way of killing his victims, if you know what I mean."

"I don't know what you mean."

The officer lowered his voice and leaned in close, even taking a chance by putting his hand on her shoulder. "See, he takes their top off. Literally. Makes his victims really flip their lids. Brains everywhere."

Claire's eyes widened dramatically and she gulped, pretending to be surprised and disgusted.

"This one's a little different though, because he really looted the place before moving on. Never done that before. There's a possibility that this here is a copycat killer trying to pass the blame a burglary gone wrong."

Claire doubted it very much that someone would be able to imitate Sylar's modus operandi closely enough based solely on the news reports. She began to wonder what exactly Sylar needed before another hand appeared on her other shoulder.

"Officer, don't you have better things to do than scare young girls?"

The policeman glared and walked away, muttering "Nice to meet you, Elle" as Claire turned to discover her uncle Peter standing behind her.

"They're worried sick about you," he said in lieu of a greeting. "Your parents, my mother, even Nathan..."

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "How did you find me?"

"I wasn't looking for you, I was looking for him."

"Looks like we were both too late for this one," Claire sighed. She followed him as he walked to a rental car parked up the block. "We should do this together, Peter, it'd be safer for you for both of us. 'One of us, one of them,' right?"

"I'm not afraid of him, Claire. I don't have anything he wants anymore." Peter opened the door on the passenger side and gestured for Claire to get in. "I'm taking you home."

Claire crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. "I've got to find him, Peter. I've got to stop him."

Peter hesitated, caught between his instinct to protect her and his need to stop Sylar. He remembered the first time he'd saved her, and decided that she'd be safer with him. "Fine, you can come with me - for the time being."


	8. Saajan Kahan Jasongi Main

Each victim, another stop on the map. They switched vehicles sometimes several times a day, depending on the distance between stops and the routes they were taking.

Without thinking, Elle rubbed her left wrist with her right hand, massaging it gently, tenderly, as though Sylar had grabbed her just then. It was a habit she had cultivated since he'd twisted her wrist at the diner. Indian burn, it was called, that painful sensation he'd caused, the friction burn he'd left on her arm. Limited to the space of the passenger seat most of the time, Elle's life had quickly devolved into a series of nervous tics, one repetitive action after another. Each gesture had an origin, and though they had lost their meaning over time, she continued them religiously. Her hand would go to her wrist of its own volition, then both arms would wrap around her growing belly and she'd lean forward, closing her eyes, laying her forehead against the cool surface of the dashboard. She'd started that one to help alleviate morning sickness, or car sickness, or perhaps a combination of both. After that her right hand would meander its way to the door handle, first gently pulling, and then frantically tugging, both ways futile, as Sylar never failed to telekinetically seal off her only exit.

These gestures, though meaningless, were welcome distractions in the endless hours she spent in the car, and they helped Elle avoid making conversation with the serial killer sitting beside her.

"Boy or a girl?"

Elle had hypnotized herself with her litany of small rituals, and Sylar's words woke her out of her trance. It was the first time he'd asked her a question since finding her at the diner, and the first time she'd spoken since then at all. Her voice creaked from lack of use; by now they were halfway across the Rocky Mountains. "I don't know."

"You don't know what it is, or you don't know what you want?"

"I... I think it's still too early to know." She stared forward, keeping her eyes locked on the road, refusing to turn her head lest she meet his eyes.

"Do you want... one way or the other....?"

In spite of herself, Elle started to cry. In the back of her mind, she'd been hoping she'd miscarry, knowing it would come with release - from fear, from anxiety, perhaps even from Sylar's belated bildungsroman. Her pregnancy was the only thing they had left in common - in reality, nothing more than an assortment of developing cells, no larger than Elle's balled-up fist, a special kind of tumor with a combination of their DNA. She hadn't even meant to keep it, but at this point she figured it was too late. She had only made a decision through her indecision; with no one to tell her what to do, she was like a boat adrift in the sea of options that lay before her. And it had kept Sylar from killing her once they met again. The irony wasn't lost on her; by preserving the potential life growing inside her, she had inadvertently saved her own. But to what end? To be dragged on a cross-country murderous rampage? To live each moment with every nerve of her body tensed up in fear, waiting for the inevitable end? The reality of it hit her all at once with the simple question boy or girl - she was forced to consider that, in a few short months, she'd be responsible for a tiny, helpless infant.

She cried until she started hiccuping, and each hiccup brought up with it bile that became harder and harder for her to swallow back. The car slowed to a stop on the road's shoulder, and Sylar stepped out of the vehicle, only to open the door on her side. Without even bothering to take off her seatbelt, Elle leaned as far as she could and vomited, barely aware that Sylar was holding her hair away from her face and gently rubbing her back as she did so. She continued to heave even once there was nothing left to come up.


	9. Debraj's Theme

Another day, another crime scene - that seemed about right to Claire. They had gotten to nearly a dozen sites after the police had already moved the body, taken the clues, cleaned up the bloody messes. Peter and Claire would find out too little, too late that way. But using files that Claire had stolen from her father and relying on guesswork and gut instinct, they were finally able to arrive this time before the police had been called. They knew, though, that it wouldn't be long before Leon Pinkman was missed by his family or coworkers, so they didn't waste time trying to gather their own evidence.

The first clue, of course, was the dead man in the kitchen, his skullcap lying beside his body, leaving his gray matter exposed to the dry desert air. It was undoubtedly Sylar's work.

More confounding to the two of them, however, was that the home had been robbed. In spite of his hunger for more abilities, Sylar had never been known for his attachment to material things.

"The kitchen's been pretty much cleared out," Claire called out to Peter, who was examining the state of things in the bedroom. "The cabinets are almost completely empty."

"Looks like he took food, clothes... that makes sense, I guess. There's another body in the bedroom, a woman - I think it's his wife."

"Was her... is she..."

"Just sliced, not diced," Peter replied, massaging his temples as he collected his thoughts. "He was the special one; she was just a casualty." Peter pulled a chair away from the table to sit down. He leaned against his balled-up fist, his brow furrowed. "I couldn't find any of her clothes, either. All the clothes are gone."

"So what are you saying... that Sylar is disguising himself in drag, now?" Claire smirked, trying to introduce some levity to the situation.

Peter didn't reply right away. "Maybe he's been pawning things for extra cash. Or maybe she wasn't his wife. Maybe she was just visiting."

"Does she have a ring?" Claire queried.

"No, she didn't, but it looks like she did at one point."

Claire bent down to examine the dead man's left hand. There was a white mark on his ring finger, close to his knuckle - the kind of mark left by wearing a ring, perhaps a little too tight, for a long time.

They returned to the front yard, where Peter had parked behind a decrepit Chevy truck. "You think this is their truck?" Claire asked, looking from the truck back to the manicured front lawn, the impeccable landscaping, the spotless house.

"I doubt it," Peter replied, yanking open the driver's side door. The floor of the cab was littered with debris - trash from fast-food restaurants, plastic grocery bags, empty Slush-O cups.

"Disgusting," Claire remarked.


	10. They

They spent nearly all their time in the car together, and yet they rarely even faced one another. Sylar's eyes were always ahead, focused on the road; Elle's eyes were always averted, caught up in the landscape rushing past her. There was silence except for the voices on the AM radio, arguing about miniscule, negligible things like politics and the economy and the state of the nation.

They had passed through the flat, barren deserts of Arizona and New Mexico, and were now headed north and east, entering the grassy plains states. Daylight was growing dimmer and dimmer when Sylar spoke out over the sounds of the radio. "I'm sorry. You don't seem very happy."

"Please let me go," Elle replied, louder than she meant to be. It slipped out before she could even think about her words, but it had been the only thing on her mind since this crazy cross-country joyride began.

Sylar knit his eyebrows, puzzled. He turned to face her as he clicked the vehicle's headlights on, as though he didn't believe her, as though he couldn't take her seriously. "No. Elle, I need you."

Elle swallowed back the lump in her throat. "But if you love someone," she started, her voice wavering, "you should set them free." She couldn't tell him how frightened she was of him; after all, he'd tried to kill her twice, and she had no idea what he was going to do with her this time. For all she knew, he was fattening her up to eat later.

Sylar spoke evenly, calmly, like a father soothing his confused daughter - a tone he knew Elle would pay attention to. "I never loved you, Elle. I wanted you. It's not the same thing. Love... it hurts people. It damages them. It ruins them. You know."

"If you loved me, I'd already be dead," Elle figured out loud. Still, she couldn't make it all fit together. "So what is it that's keeping you from killing me now?"

"I still want you, Elle."

She scoffed and shifted in her seat, readjusting the seatbelt across her ever-expanding girth. She winced as she short-circuited; a blue spark curled itself around her wrist.

How could he explain his hunger to her? The same thing that drove him to kill, to target people with powers - it was a part of this hunger to be a better man, and internal struggle to be the best of all possible worlds. He'd seen what Bennet had, a family that depended on him, was devoted to him, a family that he'd do anything to protect - and he wanted it. And Sylar knew that Elle and this baby were his only chance for that.

Instead he simply said, "Family," as he hand wandered into his jacket pocket. Inside there were two matching gold wedding rings and a diamond engagement ring, and he held them in his hand until the metal became warm.


	11. Negions Fail

The waffle house had a map of the United States in vibrant colors on the back of the placemat. While awaiting a balanced breakfast of Belgian waffles with butter and syrup, Claire flipped moved aside her plate and flipped her placemat over, crayon in hand. She marked the approximate location of each of Sylar's recent murder with a waxy blue dot. When finished she tried connecting the dots.

"What's that supposed to be?" Peter asked, craning his neck to see across the table as he sipped his lukewarm coffee.

"It's not supposed to be anything," Claire replied.

"It kind of looks like a three-legged giraffe from here," Peter said.

"And it looks like it could be Mr. Muggles from here. Or maybe a postmodern portrait of Lyle. Depends on how you see it, I guess."

Claire crinkled her eyes in confusion, turning around to see her father standing just behind her, leaning against the booth. "Dad!" she exclaimed.

"Hello Claire Bear. I'm here to take you home."

"Mr. Bennet," Peter said, business-like. "Why don't you join us for breakfast? We only just ordered."

Bennet inhaled deeply, a false smile on his face. It was the kind of expression Claire always feared as a girl. Her father was never the kind of parent to raise his voice, to lose his temper, instead coolly and levelly explaining every fault, every mistake, and why it was wrong, always with that phony smile. She could never quite figure out if he enjoyed pointing out her flaws, or if he just pretended to for some reason. "All right, I think I will. I could use a cup of coffee."

"Dad, are Mom and Lyle okay?" Claire asked, wrinkling her forehead in concern.

"Aside from being worried sick, everyone is fine," he said as he perused the menu. "But after breakfast, we're headed straight back to Costa Verde."

Claire opened her mouth to object, but Peter held up his hand. "It's okay, Claire, I can catch him on my own."

Mr. Bennet ordered when Claire and Peter's food arrived - he wanted nothing but dry toast and coffee. Claire pushed pieces of waffle around her plate, swirling them in syrup, having somehow lost her appetite. "Dad, I really think you should let me do this," she said finally.

Bennet looked into his daughter's eyes, expecting to see a foolish teenage girl, a magnet for trouble, a child he was supposed to protect. But when their eyes met, he saw more than just that. There was earnestness, and determination, and a will to fight. He saw a girl that, if he took her home, she'd just find another way out. At least this way, he could be there to protect her. He sighed. "Fine. I'll call your mother and tell her I'm staying with you. But from now on you do as I say. I'm the one in charge here."

"Thanks, Dad," Claire said, her sullen expression broken by a smile, as she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him.

"All right, Mr. Bennet," Peter acceded. "What's our next move?"

Bennet motioned for the waitress. "Check please."


	12. Tranquilize

The bright red numbers on the clock radio declared the time - 1:46 a.m. Elle had been staring at that clock for hours, willing time to move faster, hoping that her fears would disappear with the gray sunlight that crept in every dawn, when Sylar would make her get out of bed and back into the car for . But dawn was still hours away, and she sighed and rolled over, so she wouldn't have to face those angry, unyielding red numbers anymore.

She was fading in and out of sleep when the blankets shifted and the mattress sank; Sylar had climbed into bed behind her. Elle pretended to remain asleep, struggling to keep her breath from quickening. He pulled his own body closer to hers, so that the only thing coming between them was the flimsy jersey t-shirt Elle was wearing. She could feel the hair on his chest through the fabric, and the stubble on his face scratched to skin on her neck and shoulder, making the little hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end. His breath was hot, but his hand was cold, and it wandered all over the surface of her body.

From there his hand traced its way across the contour of Elle's belly. The t-shirt only extended as far as her belly-button; below she was naked. She bit her tongue to keep from gasping as his hand explored even further, past the hem of her shirt, the callous skin of his palm against the taut surface of her expanded midriff. She braced herself against him, starting to cry out, but his other hand covered her face and he whispered "Shhhh, shhhh." He pulled her even closer to himself. "Please," he asked, so low that she almost didn't hear him. "Please."

Elle shuddered as she sighed, rolling towards him onto her back. He shifted until he was on top of her, one hand on the bed on either side of her head. She didn't complain that he was pinning down her hair, even though it pulled painfully against her scalp.

For Sylar, it was a relief; his tensions dissipated, his fears alleviated, and he fell deeply asleep, his body curled against the warmth of hers.

For Elle, it was just another series of meaningless mechanical motions.


	13. The Walk

Angela Petrelli was becoming uneasy. She bit her lip, flipping through the intel papers that had just come to her desk concerning Sylar. In trying to avert the terrible dream she'd had, she was afraid that she was fulfilling its awful prophecy. She sighed, going over the files of all the people killed, knowing that this list didn't even include the people _without_ abilities.

She had tried to head this problem off at the pass by sending Bennet by himself. He would have resolved this issue long ago with a well-placed bullet to the back of Sylar's skull, she was sure of it, but his refusal sealed his fate, as far as she had been concerned. She couldn't care one way or another whether he lived or died at this point. She had meant for him to be the sacrificial lamb anyway.

It had been another thing to see her son charge off after Sylar. He was idealistic and headstrong, and she knew before she even tried that she couldn't convince him to let it be. Besides that, she thought just maybe he had it in him - after all, he'd been able to kill his own father.

But then she heard about Claire, about her sneaking off in the middle of the night to try and stop Sylar herself. It was a foolhardy thing to do.

She leaned back in the oversized leather chair, closing her eyes for just a moment before being overcome again by a dream. This one was far more visceral, the sensations overpowering. She could taste cigarette smoke and Milkwaukee's Best in the air, hear grunts and groans and pained screams.

She felt the electricity again, like in the first dream - a sharp tingle up her spine, a pain so severe it made her muscles twist and ache. Where had Sylar gotten that power? There was only one person she knew who had it, and Angela had imagined that she'd be dead by now.

In the dream, the sensations faded and gave way to visions, and Sylar and Elle appeared before her. Angela thought she must be seeing ghosts, and she swallowed back a lump in her throat. She jerked back into consciousness, catching her breath.


	14. Right Here, Right Now

"Would you like to help me with this one?"

He didn't turn to her to speak; he was looking straight ahead, taking in the sight of the double-wide ahead of them. He was mentally casing the place, calculating exits, trying to determine how many windows and doors he'd have to mentally lock all at once.

"You don't need my help," she replied, matter-of-factly. Of course he didn't. In the past few months they'd criss-crossed their way across the country, and Sylar had stolen more powers than could be counted on fingers and toes. Some were more handy than others; it wasn't often that he exercised his ability to draw perfect circles. But one power in particular was proving wonderfully useful; a man near Lincoln, Nebraska, had been able to detect powered persons within a fifty-mile radius. It had taken Sylar a while to use this ability, as so much of the plains states were sparsely populated, but he was delighted to find that it allowed him pinpoint accuracy in finding their locations.

One thing this power did _not_ tell him, however, was what he'd be up against. There was no telling what power lay in this double-wide, whether it was contained in man, woman or child, whether anyone else was in the house. Sylar could understand Elle's trepidation. "I won't let anything happen to you."

She reached down and massaged her thighs. Her sciatic nerve was killing her from being in the car so long, with the weight of the baby pressing down on her legs; a little exercise certainly wouldn't hurt. She inhaled deeply, and looked up to meet Sylar's gaze, but he was still staring straight ahead. She unbuckled her seatbelt and let herself out, halfway to the door before Sylar even hurriedly stumbled out of the car.

The door was unlocked, and Elle let herself in, Sylar closely behind. The place was trashed - the stale smell of cheap beer and dead cigarettes choked her. The wood paneling was peeling away from the walls, and the pressboard furniture had scummy patina.

Before she turned around, Elle was violently pushed against the wall, the barrel of a gun pressed into her throat. She instinctively reached up and grabbed it, releasing enough voltage to stun her attacker into submission. The man fell backwards, twitching on the ground and groaning in pain.

"Don't kill him, he's the one with the power," Sylar told her. Two more men, one armed with another gun, lingered at the doorway, caught between the urges of fight and flight. "But they're all yours."

Elle had forgotten how much fun it was to kill indiscriminately. The odor of beer and cigarettes soon gave way to the more satisfying scent of ozone.

There wasn't a lot to loot except cold, hard cash, but they judged from paraphernalia in the kitchen that they had walked into a meth lab.

"Want to practice your sharpshooting?" he asked her. When they returned to the car, they drove as far as they could with the doublewide still in sight. Leaning against the car, Elle cocked her hand like a gun and sent a small but precise spark through the air. A moment later the building exploded, the heat of it almost as intense as the heat of Sylar's arm wrapping around Elle, pulling her towards him in forceful kiss.


	15. Red to Black

"This one is different - look at these scorch marks. It looks like it started as an electrical fire."

The foundation of the home still smoldered; the explosion had destroyed every other remnant of the house, and even killed the nearby grass. The volunteer fire department had deemed it a lost cause, and left long ago, leaving three curious bystanders pacing the lawn with a warning not to get too near the wreckage. At the moment, those three curious bystanders were trying to determine whether or not this was the work of Sylar, arguing back and forth.

"I don't disagree, Mr. Bennet, and that's why I think that this might not be the work of Sylar. It looks like electrokinesis. He didn't have that power last time I checked, and he hasn't killed anyone with it," Peter told him.

"You mean it hasn't been _confirmed_ that he's killed anyone with electrokinesis." The two men looked at one another, a name hanging in the air between them, unsaid. "I don't see how else this could have happened."

"It was a _meth lab_. They go up all the time."

"Not when the person renting the property has the ability to suppress combustion, they don't."

Claire's gut feeling told her this was Sylar's doing, but she knew gut feelings weren't enough to go by, so while her father and her uncle argued, she paced the lawn, looking for more clues. Finally she stepped up to the vehicle that had been left behind. "This car has Missouri plates," Claire remarked. "It probably didn't belong to the guy who could combust suppression... or whatever his power was."

Bennet smiled, in spite of himself. His daughter was proving to be a better criminal investigator than he thought. But even though this wasn't the kind of life he had in mind for her, he knew the only way for his family to be happy would be to get rid of the imminent danger that Sylar always posed.

They opened the car and found it littered with garbage again. "I never thought Sylar would be such a pig," Peter said, rifling through the trash, looking for a clue.

"I never pegged him as the type to like Slush-O so much," Claire added. "There's three more empty cups in here, and there were four or five in the last car we found."

The Slush-O, the scorch marks... Bennet bit his lip and looked over the rims of his glasses. "He's not alone. He's got someone with him."

Peter and Claire both stepped back from the car. "A hostage?" Peter questioned.

"I doubt he'd be so indulgent with a hostage," Bennet replied, approaching the car and sifting through the fast food refuse and junk food trash. "I don't know why I didn't think of it before. It must be Elle."

Peter's cell phone rang, and he turned away to answer it. "Mom," he said, "we've found another victim. And Sylar's not alone... we think he has Elle with him."

"_I_ could have told you that," Angela snapped back.

"Is everything okay there, Mom?" Peter asked, catching the exhaustion in his mother's tone.

"Everything's fine, Peter... I just haven't been sleeping well lately."


	16. Toxic

They made love that night in an Indiana motel room.

Sylar had just taken a shower, and stepped out of the bathroom, still glistening with moisture. Elle crouched on the bed, wearing an oversized t-shirt, and zapped him playfully from across the room. The spark connected with Sylar's shoulder, sizzling and and popping and hissing as it danced playfully across his skin before it died. Shocked, Sylar dropped the towel that he'd held around his waist. For a moment his eyes were narrowed and Elle's breath caught in her throat, afraid that she'd made the wrong move. In the next instant he was on top of her, his hands around her wrists, pinning her on her back. Her skin crackled with electricity where water droplets fell from his still-wet hair. All that came between them was the round dome of her belly.

Suddenly Sylar's serious expression melted into a smile. "Did I scare you?"

Elle struggled to speak, but her breath had grown too fast and shallow, and her heart beat so fast. Instead she nodded.

"I'm sorry," Sylar whispered. "Let me make it up to you," he offered, licking his lips in savage desire.

For Elle it was a religious experience; it was as though she suddenly remembered that each caress, each touch, was infused with meaning. Afterwards she felt sore in every muscle, and she blamed the weight of the baby and the general malaise of pregnancy. Why was giving life so exhausting? The exhilarating part was taking it away.

She fell asleep almost immediately, her head resting on Sylar's shoulder.


	17. Cells

A trap. It was the only way.

After following Sylar and Elle for months, Bennet could trace their path to predict their next victim - a former Company agent named Lloyd Gaines, who had retired to a small feed-corn farm in northeastern Ohio. Gaines had been doing all right for himself; his crop always seemed to survive even the worst frosts of the year, and thrived through periods of flood and drought. Plant regeneration was a useful ability to have in agriculture. Bennet knew their chances against Sylar and Elle would be better if they were prepared, and the way he intended to do that would be to lay in wait, like spiders in their webs waiting for a foolhardy fly.

He also tried to compile a list of Sylar's acquired abilities, based on what was known about his victims. The list was harrowing and humorous: various forms of telepathy and clairvoyance, luminescence (great, now Sylar could glow in the dark), temperature manipulation. "When does he ever use the ability to draw perfect circles?" Bennet asked himself, reviewing the list he'd made.

A trap. It would be perfect.

Claire was tired of being on the road for months. She missed most of her senior year, and as much as she tried ignore that fact (high school really wasn't all that important in the grand scheme of things), it was still bothering her. Lyle had told her over the phone that most of her classmates thought she was pregnant, and had been sent to a nunnery or a distant relative's home to have the baby. She reamed him out for letting everyone believe it, but he told her he didn't know what else to tell them. What was he going to say, that she was pursuing a super-powered serial killer across the country because he had brain-raped her?

She looked over the list her dad had made and scoffed, trying to pretend that Sylar didn't scare her.

A trap. It would work. It had to.

Peter called his mother to ask for help once they reached Lloyd Gaines' house. Gaines was an grizzled old man now, and he hadn't been expecting company, but he recognized Bennet and, after some convincing, agreed to the plan. The house was set far back from the road, after a long dirt driveway that winded its way through muddy fields, dead stalks from last year's crop still sticking up at angles through the topsoil.

The plan was to slow them coming up the drive with a few well-placed and powerful explosives. That wouldn't stop Sylar, but it might take down Elle. In his weakened state, the three of them could take him. They needed guns, of course, but those were easy to come by. It was the explosives that Peter called his mother about; the Company could provide them easily enough.

A trap. It was exactly what Angela Petrelli had been afraid of. She finally approved of the plan, with the caveat that she was coming too.


	18. Children

When Sylar drove, it was as though the car was operating on auto-pilot. He never looked confused, he never had to look at signs twice. It was as though he had a GPS implanted in his brain. Elle wondered if he had acquired that as a power or if he was just naturally good at finding his way around as they moved into the right lane on I-80 and started heading south on Route 11.

"Where are we going?" Elle asked.

"Lisbon. We're going after someone in from your Company contacts."

Elle leaned back and sighed, trying to remember how many Primatech agents were based in Ohio. With her help, Sylar had already killed three; how many could there be total? Her thoughts were punctuated by a sharp pain in her stomach - hunger pangs. With great effort, given the size of her belly now, Elle lurched forward and searched for anything to eat at her feet. The floor was littered with empty Slush-O cups and bags of stale chips. There was nothing edible left.

"We need to stop. I'm hungry," she said.

"Okay. We're in no hurry." Sylar moved into the right lane, preparing to exit the roadway. He scanned the signs for places to eat in Canfield, Ohio.

"Canfield," Sylar muttered, smiling and shaking his head.

"Why does that sound so familiar?" Elle asked, cocking her head.

"It's someone we used to know. Level Five, remember?"

Elle didn't like to remember Level Five. Its memory brought with it a terrible fear. In fact, she could feel it now, clenching in her guts, and she leaned forward, hands around her middle, and concentrated on breathing until the feeling passed.

She wore a smile to hide her pain while they sat in the nearby Arby's, the nearest fast-food place to the off-ramp. Two value meals and a shared milkshake later, they were back in the car.

"I don't feel good," Elle said suddenly, her words stilted.

"You don't have a good feeling about this? Or is that the big beef and cheddar speaking?"

He felt her hand on his bicep, and as he turned to smile reassuringly at her, she squeezed him so fiercely that her nails cut into his skin, even through the sleeves of his shirt and jacket. She winced and folded in on herself, breathing heavily as though she was drowning.

"Elle, are you..."

She whimpered and leaned back, still clutching Sylar's arm. "Oh, God, Gabriel," she cried, calling him by his old name, tears creeping out from the corners of her eyes. "I'm not ready for this. I don't think I can do this."

"We'll go to a hospital, Elle, don't worry, everything will be fine." Sylar could see Route 11 from the Arby's parking lot, and he noted the blue hospital sign pointing the way as he put the car in reverse.

"Jesus Christ, Gabriel," she grunted, rolling forward again through another contraction, her forehead pressed against the dashboard. She started sparking again, short-circuiting, losing control. The volts of electricity left scorch marks on the upholstery.

He reached over, placing his hand on her wrist, holding it tightly. "Elle, don't worry," he repeated. "Everything will be fine."

He never left her side when they reached the hospital, holding her hand, absorbing all her electricity into himself without even flinching. She screamed and groaned and cried until suddenly there was another voice crying above hers, the unmistakable wail of a newborn.

Sylar cut the cord and the attending doctor laid the infant across Elle's chest. She smiled wanly, looking from her son to his father and back again, her lips quivering and sobs catching in her throat, unable to believe that she'd made a tiny human being and brought it into the world.

Sylar himself was amazed by this little creature - his full head of hair and his wide inquisitive eyes, blinking still from the passage from darkness into light. He gently cupped his son's head in his hand, afraid he might break him. He spoke half to Elle and half to his son, saying "I'll never let anything happen to you, I swear to God. I'm going to protect you forever."


	19. Ghosts of a Future Lost

They stood outside, waiting, until the darkness fell around them and the cold sucked all the warmth from their bodies. Claire clutched her arms around herself as she tried to keep her teeth from chattering. Peter sighed as he scanned the horizon impatiently, the air so brisk that it stung his throat and lungs. Bennet stood stoically, hand never leaving the gun at his side, his stony expression concealing his anxiety.

"They aren't coming," Angela Petrelli told them, barely able to keep her balance as she struggled to walk across the soft ground. Her heels kept sinking into the topsoil.

The other three didn't move. They had come so far and were now so close; they weren't ready to give up just yet.

"They aren't coming," Angela reiterated. "They're not coming ever."

"Mom, you don't know what you're talking about. You don't know Sylar," Peter gruffly told her.

Angela folded her arms and walked back to Lloyd Gaines' farmhouse, letting herself in. Gaines was drinking and watching a Steelers game, and she sank down into the couch beside him. Watching the yellow and gold streaking across the field, Angela closed her eyes and dreamed again. The dream had changed somehow; no longer did she see the death of those near and dear to her, but something else entirely. She briefly wondered what it had been that changed the course of the future before the realness of the dream overcame her.

She saw him - Sylar - back in his glasses, though he certainly didn't need them anymore. He was wearing an apron and operating a waffle iron. Behind him, gently hugging him, was Elle, the woman she had fired so long ago. They both went to a third figure, a small child, who threw his arms around their bent necks and kissed them both in turn. Angela could tell that the child was their son, and she was witnessing the life they would build together to keep him safe.

The life they had made had saved their own.


End file.
